Melanie McDonagh

Deus ex machina

22 July 2017 9:00 am

Mark Zuckerberg says that Facebook could be to its users what churches are to congregations: it could help them feel…

Got the message?

18 March 2017 9:00 am

To cut to the chase, my ten-year-old daughter really liked Beauty and the Beast. And given you’re probably going to…

‘The Forty Martyrs of England and Wales’ by Daphne Pollen. The two foreground figures are Margaret Clitheroe and Nicholas Owen, the priest-hole maker. Behind Margaret Clitheroe, with arms crossed, is Edmund Campion. Philip Howard, 1st Earl of Arundel, is in doublet and hose beside the greyhounda

Reason and faith

18 March 2017 9:00 am

Roy Hattersley would never have been born had it not been that his mother ran away with the parish priest…

Against Queen Camilla

25 February 2017 9:00 am

How would you feel about a Queen Camilla, as in the wife of King Charles? Personally I’d be dead against,…

Against Queen Camilla

23 February 2017 3:00 pm

How would you feel about a Queen Camilla, as in the wife of King Charles? Personally I’d be dead against,…

Against Queen Camilla

23 February 2017 3:00 pm

How would you feel about a Queen Camilla, as in the wife of King Charles? Personally I’d be dead against,…

Positively Trumpian

29 December 2016 3:00 pm

This being the time of year for it, you’re probably thinking what form your New Year New You will take.…

Children’s books for Christmas

3 December 2016 9:00 am

Maurice Sendak, no mean judge, observed that William Nicholson’s Clever Bill was ‘among the few perfect picture books for children’.…

Serious concerns

19 November 2016 9:00 am

It’s funny, isn’t it, how a dust jacket on a book can draw you to it from the other end…

‘Shelter Scenes, Tilbury’ by Edward Ardizzone

Serious concerns

17 November 2016 3:00 pm

It’s funny, isn’t it, how a dust jacket on a book can draw you to it from the other end…

Ghosts of the seasons

22 October 2016 9:00 am

Forget killer clowns. Halloween was once a very different affair from the Americanised gorefest it is now. In its-original Irish…

All things bright and beautiful

8 October 2016 9:00 am

For much of the Middle Ages, especially from 1250–1350, ‘English work’ was enormously prized around Europe from Spain to Iceland.…

All things bright and beautiful

6 October 2016 2:00 pm

For much of the Middle Ages, especially from 1250–1350, ‘English work’ was enormously prized around Europe from Spain to Iceland.…

Children’s books for Christmas

27 November 2014 3:00 pm

If it’s all right with you, I’d like to launch a campaign please. Right here. You may be wanting me…

The Parent Trap, familiar from various film versions, is a story by Eric Kastner, now republished with Walter Trier’s illustrations by Pushkin Books

Children’s books for Christmas

27 November 2014 3:00 pm

If it’s all right with you, I’d like to launch a campaign please. Right here. You may be wanting me…